To what extent did Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun add to our knowledge of Egypt during the 18th dynasty?
-- Richard, Web post

Dr. dig responds:
This is an interesting question. Howard Carter discovered many valuable items in Tutankhamun's tomb -- not just gold and jewelry but textiles, wooden objects, pottery, food and drink, and, of course, the body of the young king himself. However, there was very little writing in the tomb, and absolutely no personal history of Tutankhamun at all. Therefore, you could say that the tomb actually added relatively little to our understanding of 18th Dynasty royal history. Because of this, many Egyptologists were faintly disappointed with the tomb contents when it was opened in 1922. Today, almost a century later, experts are starting to re-examine the grave goods. There is a team in Holland, for example, studying and recreating the textiles, and we are beginning to realize just how much information about daily life and ancient technologies these artifacts actually hold.